Dr Jane Turner

Research

Research Interests

Currently I am involved in a research project examining theatre laboratory practices titled A Poetics of Third Theatre. The research project was initiated by an international symposium that colleague Patrick Campbell and I organised in Manchester in 2015 titled  A Handful of Dust: the praxis and diasporic legacy of Odin Teatret. In 2016 we organised a second event in Brazil that more specifically focussed on Third Theatre communities. The project continues to be undertaken in collaboration with Patrick and is supported by Odin Teatret and Nordisk TeaterLaboritorium. The project is platformed on our web site: www.thirdtheatrenetwork.com and the research has been published in two journal articles, a chapter and a forthcoming monograph titled A Poetics of Third Theatre: Performer Training, Dramatugy, Expanded Practices.

My other research interests include Balinese performance; the politics of intercultural performance; theatre anthropology; and the work of theatre practitioner Eugenio Barba - all of which were featured areas of my PhD. I have spent time studying and researching in Bali (most recently in 2012) and continue to be interested in non-western theatre practices as well as the politics of intercultural performance. More recently this research has engaged with notions of embodiment. However, I am also actively interested in analysis and developing critical frameworks that can usefully be employed to further academic understanding of theatre practice from a spectator's perspective. To this end, I am interested in developing critical commentary on theatre projects, focusing specifically on the web of effects/affects that performance practices have on spectators and participants. I was  involved, as an ethnographer and dramaturg, on a collaborative project with Proto-type Theater and MMUle titled The Good, the God and the Guillotine that toured the UK from autumn 2013.

Invited Papers

Turner, J. (2019) Invited plenary speaker at the 1st international NTL Festival - hosted by Nordisk TeaterLaboritorium/Odin Teatret in Denmark: ‘Mapping a Poetics of Third Theatre: Performer Training, Dramaturgy and Participation’, February 2019.

Turner, J. (2019) Invited to present at the ‘Hybrid Practices: Methodologies, Histories, and Performance’ annual conference hosted by the School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta March 2019 – invited to develop paper for publication in Special Edition of Performance Research: On Hybridity (co-authored with Patrick Campbell). Submit autumn 2019.

Turner, J. (2018) Keynote speaker at the International Transdisciplinary Collaborative Performativity conference hosted by the University of Central Lancashire’s College of Culture & Creative Industries’ Schools of Journalism, Media & Performance and Art, Design & Fashion, in association with the international directors of Paris-based Pantheatre, July 2018.

Turner, J. (2018) Invited speaker at ISTR Stages of Inclusion 2 conference held in Lincoln June 2018 – on the special TaPRA panel.

Turner, J. (2010) ‘Theatre + Anthropology = Interculturalism’. Invited to present at one-day conference event in celebration of Victor Turner, Manchester University, UK.

Turner, J. (2000) Invited speaker: ‘Intercultural Theatre and the Spectator’, Common Grounds, Northampton, UK.

Conference Organisation

2018 - Co-convener for Performer Training Working Group - part of TAPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association).

2016: Organised and led a three-day international Third Theatre symposium, with Dr Patrick Campbell: V INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM: THIRD THEATRE – PRAXIS, LEGACY AND REVOLT in conjunction with Professor Eliene Benício Amâncio Costa (Federal University of Bahia, Brazil) and Luis Alonso (International Festival of Latin American Theatre of Bahia, Brazil). Archived at https://www.thirdtheatrenetwork.com

2015: Organised and led ‘A Handful of Dust: the Praxis and Diasporic Legacy of Odin Teatret’. An international 2-day Third Theatre Network event organized and led in collaboration with Dr. Patrick Campbell. The event took place at Contact Theatre Manchester. Presentations and papers are archived at https://www.thirdtheatrenetwork.com 

Grants

PI British Academy Leverhulme Small Grants £10,000, submitted in 2016 – unsuccessful.

PI AHRC Standard Grant £280,000, submitted in 2016 – very positive feedback and advised to publish more and resubmit; reached panel stage but unsuccessful. 

PI AHRC Network Grant £45,000, submitted in 2015 – very positive rating and reached panel stage but unsuccessful.

Jane Turner is a member of the Art and Performance Research Hub.

Books

Turner, J., Campbell, P., 2021. 'A Poetics of Third Theatre Performer Training, Dramaturgy, Cultural Action', Perspectives on Performer Training, London.

Turner, J., 2004. 'Eugenio Barba', Psychology Press.

Book Chapters

Blain, M., Turner, J., 2020. 'The Good, The God and The Guillotine: Insider/Outsider Perspectives'. In Blain, M., Minors, HJ. (eds.) Artistic Research in Performance through Collaboration, pp. 205-228, Springer International Publishing, Cham.

Turner, J., Campbell, PGW., 2019. ''The Dance of Opposition: Repetition, Legacy and Difference in Third Theatre Training'.'. In Evans, M., Thomaidis, K., Worth, L. (eds.) Time and Performer Training, Routledge.

Turner, JC., Campbell, P., 2019. 'Dialogues Between Bodies-in-Life in the recent work of Odin Teatret: Intercultural or interstitial?'. In The Methuen Drama Companion to Performance and Interculturalism edited by Daphne Lei and Charlotte McIvor, Bloomsbury Methuen.

Turner, JC., 2016. ''Dramaturgical weaving: The Good, The God and The Guillotine'.'. In Translation, Adaptation, and Dramaturgy: Collisions and Convergences..

Turner, J., 2015. 'The disenchantment of western performance training, and the search for an embodied experience: Toward a methodology of the ineffable'. In Methodologies of Embodiment: Inscribing Bodies in Qualitative Research, pp. 53-68, Routledge.

Deeney, JF., 2013. 'Location, location, location: narrative and 'blankness' in recent British drama'. In Turner, J., Shirley, D. (eds.) Performing Narrative: Narration, 'Denarration', Fracture and Absence in Contemporary Performance Practice, pp. 1-11, MMU Institute for Performance Research.

Kinghorn, SW., 2013. 'Nothing but the Truth: narrative, authenticity and the dramatic in tribunal theatre'. In Shirley, D., Turner, J. (eds.) Performing Narrative, pp. 12-27, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Shirley, D., 2013. 'Voice and Presence in Samuel Beckett's Footfalls (1976), Rockaby (1981) and Krapp's Last Tape (1958)'. In Performing Narrative
narration, 'denarration', fracture and absence in contemporary performance practice, mmu.

Journal Articles

Turner, J., 2022. '...Ship of fools', Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 13 (1), pp. 154-154.

Ledger, AJ., Kuhlmann, A., Christoffersen, EE., Turner, J., Campbell, P., Chemi, T., 2022. 'From the centre to the periphery', Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 13 (1), pp. 156-158.

Campbell, P., Turner, J., 2019. 'Odin Teatret's The Tree: performing in the interstices', Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, 9 (3), pp. e88116-e88116.

Turner, J., Campbell, P., 2018. 'Radical Care', Performance Research, 23 (6), pp. 58-64.

Turner, JC., 2016. 'Sound and Subjectivity in the "techno-sublime": Autobiographer and Ring.', Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism.

Westerside, A., Blain, M., Turner, J., 2016. 'Through collaboration to sharawadji: immediacy, mediation and the voice', Theatre and Performance Design, 2 (3-4), pp. 293-311.

Turner, J., 2011. 'Diegetic Theatre as a 'Place' for the Theatricalised Spectator', Platform : Postgraduate e-Journal of Theatre and Performing Arts, 6 (1), pp. 28-43.

Turner, JC., 2011. 'Embodiment, Balinese Dance Theatre and the Ethnographer's Predicament', Performance and Spirituality, 2 (1), pp. 60-84.

Turner, J., 2008. 'Dreams and phantasms: Towards an ethnoscenological reading of the intercultural theatrical event (Keir Elam, Eugenio Barba)', SEMIOTICA, 168 (1-4), pp. 143-167.

Turner, J., 2007. 'Acts of Creative Vandalism? Plane Performance Deconstruct the Canon', New Theatre Quarterly, 23 (3), pp. 208-218.

Turner, JC., 2007. 'Making Amends: an Interventionist Theatre Programme with Young Offenders', Research in Drama Education, 12 (2), pp. 179-194.